Hyperemesis Gravidarum Support and Research Forums

HG Researchers need your help!

This study is designed to identify individuals affected with HG, to study epidemiologic factors via an online survey, to collect DNA samples from saliva through the mail at no cost or travel for you, and to search for genes and risk factors that may be potentially associated with this condition. To be eligible, you must have suffered from HG and had treatment for your HG that includes i.v. hydration, TPN or other form of non-oral feeding (ie nasogastric feeding), OR both, and are able to recruit a friend with at least 2 pregnancies who has NOT suffered from HG to serve as a control. If you live in the United States and are interested, please contact Marlena Schoenberg Fejzo, PhD at nvpstudy@usc.edu or (310)210-0802.

Identification of genes and risk factors that contribute to HG will lead to a better understanding of the causes of severe nausea and vomiting of pregnancy, and should be a first step toward the development of more effective treatments or a cure for this devastating disease.

I just want to clarify. We don't have to be currently pregnant, just have previously had HG pregnancies, correct?

You do NOT need to be currently pregnant to participate in the study. Thanks for helping me clarify!
Marlena

Great! I'm in!

Another clarification, I had IVs but not tpn or tube feeding, do we need to have two of those or just one? Are IVs alone a qualifying factor?

Good question, Jenny. I just assumed IVs alone would qualify. That's all I ever had, and I'm sure I *should* have received more than that in my first pregnancy but I didn't have a brilliant midwife that time . Guess I'll wait to see for sure what Marlena says.

Yup-IV alone is enough. Please contact me at nvpstudy@usc.edu or (310)210-0802 and I'll either email or talk to you by phone within the next week or so to go through the eligibility questions in more detail.
Thanks for the questions and interest!
Marlena

Sorry, but I have another question. What is the time-frame of this study?

Amy

We plan to recruit and collect DNA samples over the first two years and genotype and analyze the genetic and survey results over the 3rd and 4th years (maybe longer, pending funding). So we expect the study to take 4 years, but participant direct involvement is only in the first 2 years.

Thank you for your interest-I'm happy to clarify!

Marlena

Heh, one more question... just out of curiosity though. Are you guys doing a certain number of participants (I know some studies will do say 1000 of one type and 1000 of another type to compare against, for example), or are you just taking in to account as many participants as you can get? I don't know if that's something you can elaborate on or not but I wanted to ask anyway.

We are shooting for 500 women affected with HG and 500 friend controls, but if we get more in our 2 year time frame, we'll use more.
M

Nice to know, thanks! I've let my other friends with HG who don't frequent the forums know. Hope they're interested in helping out.

And any old friend with normal pgs? Okay.

I am in Canada. Can we volunteer too?

Sorry, we are only taking participants from the US this year-we may expand to outside the US in our second year though, and I will post here if we do, so keep checking.
M

I would love to participate in this and was wondering if the friend needed to be from my area, or if she could be in another town. What about a sibling's DNA that didn't have any HG problems (not even morning sickness?) Thank you for doing this study!!

Hi.
Your control can NOT be related, but your control CAN be from a different state. Please contact me at nvpstudy@usc.edu and I will get back to you within the next few weeks.
Thanks for your interest,
Marlena

Ok, I sent Marlena an email so now I am just waiting to hear back from her. I have my control study partner and she has already agreed to go along with it

Hi,
I'm just curious to know how we are able to pick our own controls. I would think that would taint the data somehow. I've been in other medical studies (in college) where I had absolutely no contact with the control subjects.

Wouldn't us picking our own control somehow lessen the impact/integrity of the findings?

thanks,

That is a great question. In our last study, we used controls that were primarily recruited from an online mother's group from Palo Alto. The group was not well matched with the people on HER for things like age, education, race, etc. likely reflecting the demographics of the palo alto area. We believe by having people choose friends, we will get a better overall matching of these factors. Your friends don't need to be perfectly matched for any/all those things, but when we look at the control group overall, we think it will be. We also believe friends who have seen their friends go through HG (or heard them talk about it) are more likely to be motivated to fill out the survey and donate a saliva sample.

An update: we are nearing 150 participants (we need 500, but this is a great start!
Marlena